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Yesterday I drove up to sunny Staffordshire to rehearse with the boys and experience 2 new phenomena….periscope and piklets. The first is an app which allows you to broadcast yourselves live to anyone on Periscope around the world….and the second is a Staffordshire delicacy…a sort of thick pancake with sultanas in it. Bloody delicious and super filling I’m telling thee. We recorded an acoustic version of ‘Hitting the High Note’ on Periscope so check it out….or come and see us at Bencombe Farm, Marlow Bottom on Saturday 11th July where we’ll be performing it live at The Rebellion Brewery charity function (our 40 minute set starts at 1.50pm)
Loving festival season…..Uttoxeter was a blast- we even got 2 encores – what a cracking crowd….and are now looking forward to Pennfest Ipstones and Weyfest in Farnham. Just added in a London date – the Bedford in Balham on July 30th. It’s an amazing venue so if u haven’t been before get yourselves down there….

Ireland here we come

Us on stage at the Rock and Bowl Festival…great crowd…good times!

Hi folks

We’ve had a cracking few weeks gearing up for festival season and it all kicked off today at the Rock and Bowl Festival in Market Drayton. A cloudy day for the most part but lo and behold the sun came out five minutes into our set which gave a beautiful glow to the glorious Shropshire countryside. Half way through the set I was given a flower made out of balloons by the local clown/balloonmaker man which was a nice touch……I asked for the local delicacy of gingerbread to be thrown on stage for me but noone was forthcoming.

On Tuesday we played a set at The Horns, a pub in Watford with a rich musical history, a venue I’d never got the chance to play despite growing up in the area. It had a kind of Nashville-esque feeling to it and the crowd were fab – we loved having various audience members up on stage with us, including Martyn with whom I started the band who accompanied us on ‘Coming Around Again’ from our first album, and also my brother in law – who drummed for me at my first gig (a ball at Watford Town Hall many many moons ago). Great venue, great night.

So next on the list is a flight to Belfast on Wednesday to appear live on The Nolan Show (hosted by Steve Nolan) on BBC1 Northern Ireland. We’ll be performing ‘Drink With Me’…and will no doubt find a little time for some Guinness appreciation whilst we there. ….there might not be so much whiskey left in the jar by Thursday is all I’m saying…..

Hi folks

Not long now ’til the C2C Festival comes to town – don’t forget that all the pop-up stages are FREE people!…….we’ve been rehearsing this week in preparation for our full band set on the 7th and our acoustic set on the 8th. Looking forward to performing a live set for Radio 2 on Saturday – what an honour to play for the one and only Bob Harris – as well as catching all the other fantastic acts, eating, drinking and generally having ourselves a swell time.

On Sunday we went to Northamptonshire where the company AUDEN are based and recorded a couple of tracks using their beautiful new guitars – a real treat. We’re hoping to extend our guitar collection at a later date……

Check out our Facebook page and website for all the new live gig dates we’ve got coming up (a few more have been announced this week) – but in the meantime, I have a warning for Jase and Matt: don’t be tempted to wear an Armani Madonna-esque bullfighter’s cape on stage with huge heels at C2C. Potentially hazardous.

Our latest blog…

Hi everyone

January has flown…how many shopping days til Xmas?? Perish the thought. February has been cold but we’re moving rapidly towards Spring and the C2C festival at the O2 – can’t wait. We’re playing 2 slots on March 7th and 8th – and the best thing is it’s FREE – there’ll be loads of bands to catch, DJ’s like Jo Whiley, Sara Cox and Patrick Kielty (to name but a few) will be there, artist signings and loads of places to eat and drink. Great day out for all the family – hopefully see u there!

This week we’ve been filming up at Alive Network in Staffordshire.

We wanted to have some live footage of a couple of our album tracks so we stripped back the production and played the songs how we wrote them, just with guitars. You’ll be seeing the results within a few weeks.

It was great fun working with Tom, Andy and Kyle – and I even managed to keep up with the northerners’ tea consumption….15 cups a day. There were quite a few toilet breaks needless to say. Best bit for me though was the ‘oatcake’ run for an elevensies snack. Mmmmm, bacon and melted cheese. Peeps down south don’t know what they’re missing……

Happy New Year

Happy New Year to u all! Hope everyone had a cracking festive period and that you’re looking forward to the coming year. So far, 2015’s been pretty exciting for us….we can’t divulge at the moment, so watch this space! (Hint:- some very cool festival dates to announce)…..but in the meantime, we can let you know that we’re playing The Acoustic Festival of Britain on Sunday 21st June in Uttoxeter and The Wildwood Festival in Lincolnshire on August 23rd. Some we’ll be playing full band, some performances will be stripped back – we promise to entertain either way!

We’re currently planning our strategy for the next few months. In Feb we’re filming a couple of acoustic tracks to put on our website, we’re aiming to release our first single in March and we’re also on the road to finishing a brand new track and have started writing several more for what will be our fourth album.

Our pledge campaign was a great success and we thank everyone who took part. All the products pledged for have been sent out and the events booked in. We’re looking forward to playing lots of private parties for people this year, including living room gigs and we’re meeting several fantastic fans at the end of January in our studio (LA Sound). We’ll be chatting, listening to our music (they’ll hopefully get an exclusive listen to the new track if it’s ready!)and drinking bubbly…in fact we’ll probably end up in the pub as every good evening should.

Another date for the diary is Monday 11th May – if you live anywhere near Watford, come see us play at The Horns. I grew up in the area and went to Watford Grammar (along with the spicy Geri Helliwell no less) and I’ve always wanted to play that venue, so now we are. Marvellous.

Hi everyone

It’s been a fantastic few months for Honey Ryder – we started the Pledge Music Campaign twelve weeks ago – and thanks to all of our loyal fans we managed to achieve our target and
then some. So now we’ll be able to promote our new album ‘Born in a Bottle’ and at the same time money has been raised for a very worthy cause, Cancer Research. We’re looking forward to fulfilling all the pledges – from writing out personal lyric sheets to hanging out with pledgers and listening to the new album at LA Sound Studios whilst drinking bubbly – to the private party pledges where we get to do some very personal performances for you.

We’ve also had a total blast gigging recently. It’s what we love doing best and the reaction from the crowd during and afterwards reminds us why we write music. After our own mini headline tour in October, we went on to support Romeo’s Daughter in London and Nottingham at The Borderline and The Rescue Rooms. It was great to play in front of a new crowd – they were amazingly receptive – and an honour to support such a talented and lovely bunch of people.

We also got the opportunity to be part of an event at Westfield shopping centre in Stratford, London where we performed in a glass cube with all the audience wearing headphones – a totally surreal not to mention sweaty experience. The show was filmed by a professional camera crew – you’ll be able to see the footage on our website pretty soon. Although I’m not sure I want to see my bright red face with makeup running down it. The boys should stop wearing such heavy mascara too…..I keep telling them.

So as we head towards Christmas we hope to hear from everyone who pre-ordered the album – let us know your favourite tracks – as this might help us decide which single to release first! We can’t wait to get on the road again – next time we’re hoping to tour round the whole of Britain – so watch this space for dates…..
Thanks again for all your support, we hope you have an amazingly merry Christmas – and here’s to a great 2015. It’s going to be a good’un. I can feel it in my water.

Pledge Music Update

Hi everyone – firstly we want to say a huge thank you for all your support – we’ve managed to reach our target! – however there’s STILL TIME to pledge – we want to raise as much money for Cancer Research as possible!! Here’s us singing a track from our first album called ‘Choices’ when we dropped into Mike Swift at Coast 107.9 in on our way to the Liverpool gig last week……

Please check out this link to watch the video of us performing ‘Choices’ – http://www.pledgemusic.com/projects/honeyryder/updates/43528

WE’RE BACK

Hi everyone,

Our new album “Born In A Bottle” is now available to pre order by clicking here exclusively on Pledge Music, where you can hear snippets of 5 new tracks! But…. that’s not all! You can interact with us on a whole new level – there are a ton of opportunities up for grabs – such as a guitar lesson with Matt or Jase, handwritten lyric sheets, a private gig on The London Eye, a chance to be in our new video or even your name in the liner notes of the album sleeve. By pledging you will also be donating to Cancer Research and will be eligible for exclusive updates and footage each week.

NASHVILLE & RECORDING

Since we last saw you we’ve been over to Nashville where we performed at The Bluebird Café, and kickstarted the recording of our forthcoming album ‘Born in A Bottle’. Recording at Ocean Way in Nashville was an inspiring experience especially as we got to play alongside some of the best musicians in the world including Stevie Nicks’ bassist, Neil Youngs’ drummer & Keith Urbans’ guitarist. We came home with a large part of the record completed and then LA Sound in sunny Acton became the destination for the remainder of the recording. We were also extremely fortunate to have found an ally in legendary producer Paul Worley.

LIVE INTIMATE WARM-UP SHOWS

As always we remain entirely passionate about playing live, even more so than ever as we now have three albums worth of material to play with. We have several intimate warm-up gigs lined up including dates in London, Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool and Nottingham starting on October 20th 2014. See the ‘Tour’ section of this website for details. We’re super excited about moving forward with this record and hope to tour extensively in the UK next year as well as abroad.

Max The Parrot

Matt looked after Max the parrot for a week and in this time really bonded with him as you can see in this video.

Speaking about Max, Matt said: “I cannot believe how intelligent he is and since looking after him I have read all about the African parrot and realised they are one of the most intelligent birds in the world.”

In the video you will hear the parrot copying Matt’s voice within the space of a week!

It’s unconfirmed whether Max will be appearing on the next Honey Ryder record.